Maigret and the Beanstalk (radio play, 1959)

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Maigret and the Beanstalk
(orig.Maigret et la Grande Perche )
Radio play from Germany
original language French
Year of production 1959
genre Thriller
Duration 81 min
production SW
Contributors
author Georges Simenon
Machining Gert Westphal
Director Gert Westphal
music Hans Martin Majewski
speaker

Maigret and the Beanstalk is a radio play based on the detective novel of the same name by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon , which was realized in 1959 by Südwestfunk with Leonhard Steckel in the title role after the translation in 1956 by Ernst Sander . The version of Bayerischer Rundfunk by director Heinz-Günter Stamm from 1961 was based on the identical text version by the editor Gert Westphal , who also directed this, but thanks to its more prominent cast and the fact that it is in contrast to the older Version is available on phonograms, has a higher level of awareness.

In the detective novel, the title hero Jules Maigret solves the murder of a dentist's wife thanks to the help of a former prostitute who is nicknamed “the beanpole”, although at the beginning there is not even a corpse.

content

The radio play is set in the summer months of the early 1950s in Paris or its Neuilly suburb . On a midsummer Thursday, Maigret and his colleagues in the Quai des Orfèvres are already suffering from the heat and the wasps flying through the window that is always open when the inspector receives an unexpected visit.

Ernestine Jussiaume, née Micou, known as "the beanstalk" because of her conspicuous stature, an "alumni", asks the inspector for assistance. Ten years earlier he had let his gendarmes wrap her naked in a tablecloth on the rue de Lune because she refused to appear in the headquarters for an interrogation in a property crime and therefore refused to dress. At that time she wanted to protect her colleague Lulu by not giving evidence. Since Maigret had resolutely pulled out of the situation, he probably deserved the woman's respect. Ernestine is very worried about her husband Alfred, "the mourning lump", who in her opinion "cannot harm a fly" and "takes everything to heart for no reason" - hence his nickname.

The former employee of the safe company Blanchard “works” for years on the “other side” as a safe cracker. Now he is using his knowledge to loot his former employer's safe deposit boxes, especially those that he installed himself years ago. When he was in the office one night breaking into the safe of the dentist Guilleaume Serre in Neuilly, the light fell briefly on the face of a female corpse with blood on her chest and a telephone receiver in her hand. In a panic, he flees the country by train in order not to be associated with the murder. He told Ernestine about what he had experienced over the phone just before he left Gare du Nord and stayed in contact with her with coded postcards. Since the commissioner has not been notified of a missing person, a break-in or a murder case in this area, Maigret has to question the evidence. Thus Maigret makes his way to the Serres house to get an idea of ​​the possible case and initially only to follow the possible break-in.

In Neuilly he is received in the rue de la Ferme by the mother of the landlord, an old lady in her mid-70s, perfectly shaped and cat-friendly, who certainly denies that they had been broken into. The window would have broken in a storm a week earlier. But then it would have been restored by her son himself, who repairs everything in the house on his own. Serre himself is dismissive to the point of rudeness and wants to disgrace Maigret, which the commissioner counters. When Maigret learns that Serre's wife Marie wanted to leave her husband forever that weekend, the investigator gradually suspects that there is more to Ernestine's story. But both Serres emphasize that the separation took place by mutual consent - they even had dinner together before Monsieur Serre drove his wife to the train station in his car.

From the housemaid of the family, Eugénie, who describes her employers as “ticks”, Maigret now learns the next useful information: the marriage between the native North Frisian Marie von Aerts and Guilliaume Serre was unhappy because of his cold feeling and the obvious jealousy of his mother-in-law, Serres first Wife died of a heart attack at an early age , he and Marie have heart problems, his own father also died of a heart attack when Guilliaume was in his teens . He always inherited a not inconsiderable sum. Since even further questioning of the residents and a search of the house did not provide any further evidence of a murder, Maigret had the house observed and the Serres car in the garage was secretly examined by a forensic technician : But apart from noticeable scratches from a heavy piece of luggage on the edge of the trunk, there was nothing Find something special. Thanks to a statement from an attentive neighbor who had to get up at night because of her husband's toothache, Maigret can prove that Monsieur Serre moved his car again that night. The Commissioner's hands are still tied. Only the correspondence with Marie's closest friend in Amsterdam , Gertrude Coostine, and her further statements help him in two ways, since he can finally start real investigations with the Dutch authorities with her official missing person report. Gertrude tells him, along with many details, that Marie had a small pistol , which she would use if she had another fit of weakness, as she was afraid that her mother-in-law would poison her. When Marie threatened Madame Serre senior with this, she insisted through her son that the bullets must be removed from the weapon. However, Marie had reserve ammunition with which she immediately reloaded the weapon.

When Maigret checked at the nearby household goods retailer whether Serre, who had an account there due to his numerous “do-it-yourself” work, had also purchased the materials on the day in question, he found that Serre did the same again a little later Must have repaired the window. When confronted with the account book, Serre caves in during the interrogation at headquarters and initially claims that it was about foreign exchange smuggling and tax evasion , in which Marie herself participated on her previous trips to her fatherland, which also the heavy suitcase with a false bottom would have explained. Since the inspector is interrogating Madame Serre senior at the same time and indirectly exerting pressure as an allegedly brutal police officer through an Ernestine placed in the witness room, Monsieur Serre wants to take the blame for Marie's death on himself. But Maigret provokes his mother who, out of greed, killed both her own husband and her daughters-in-law in order to remain the first and only woman in Guilliaume's life. Since Marie drew her weapon in defense and Monsieur Serre shot her to protect his mother in turn, the Serres had to deal with a corpse this time that could not be passed off as a natural death. Thus, her body was sunk inside the suitcase in the nearby Seine . However, as Maigret finally pointed out, Madame Serre Sr. even considered giving her own son an excessive dose of heart medication during an interrogation break in order to keep himself safe. This also explains her relentless insistence to meet her son. Her actual motive was therefore not motherly love , but greed .

Now that the murder has been solved, the "funeral lair" can come back to Paris. Thanks to Maigret, he doesn't have to fear further prosecution in this case, even if his Ernestine doubts that he will eventually give up his dream of the last big and successful break-in so that both can live in the country.

background

Neuilly is a suburb of Paris where Rue de la Ferme runs parallel to Boulevard Richard-Wallace. The writer Simenon rented an apartment on Boulevard Richard-Wallace between 1936 and 1938 , so he knew the area well.

Both German-language radio play adaptations from 1959 and 1961, which were played by different radio stations and speakers, were based on Sander's translation and Gert Westphal's adaptation. The latter version featured more prominent figures with Paul Dahlke , Hans Clarin , Rolf Boysen and Hanne Wieder and is still the only one available on phonograms, as Audio Verlag published it in a special edition in 2005 along with four other Maigret radio plays.

review

In connection with the radio play adaptations, the underlying calm of the cases described was praised: “The delightful thing about Simenon's works is the calm they radiate. Simenon has never written action crime novels. The narrative style resembles a slowly flowing river. Here the people involved have enough time to develop clearly before the eyes of the reader. "

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Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Detailed information on www.hoerdat.in-berlin.de , accessed on June 27, 2012.
  2. ↑ http://www.meinebuecher.net/2011/05/georges-simenon-maigret-die-besten-falle/